The National Committee hosted a breakfast meeting with Sun Chao on Friday, November 7, 2008. Mr. Sun has been first party secretary of the Minhang District for a year. Prior to that he was Xuhui District mayor, a position he held since 2004. He was born and raised in the Xuhui District, the former French Concession with exceptional architecture and a rich cultural history. Sun is a graduate of East China University of Politics and Law with a major in Constitution and Legislature.

As part of an overall strategic review, the Rockefeller Foundation asked the National Committee to help it look at how China’s emergence affects the foundation’s strategies and goals. The China Project is an ongoing series of seminars and discussions begun in 2005 with the aim of providing the Foundation staff an opportunity to examine the global and regional impacts of China’s rise and its implications for Foundation programming around the world. The focus is on issues the Foundation staff identified as important to their programmatic goals.

This two-way exchange project introduced and facilitated community planning for HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and treatment through training workshops, observation of working models, and dialogue between American and Chinese government officials, public health professionals, and staff of community-based organizations. The main project focuses were the community planning models used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in particular, and the role of the community in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in general.